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THE USAGE PANEL

The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.

Word History: The word midwife was formed in Middle English from two elements, mid and wife. At first glance, the meaning of wife would would seem to be clear. However, wife often meant simply "woman" in general in Middle English, not specifically "female spouse" as it most often does in Modern English. The other element in midwife, the prefix mid-, is probably the Middle English preposition and adverb mid, meaning "together with." Thus a midwife was literally a "with-woman"—that is, "a woman who is with another woman and assists her in giving birth." The etymology of obstetric is even more descriptive of a midwife's role. Its Latin source obstetrīx, "a midwife," is formed from the verb obstāre, "to stand in front of," and the feminine suffix -trīx; the obstetrīx would thus literally stand in front of the baby as it was being born.

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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